In August last year, the complainant, Parsi Siganpura (50), saw a 10-rupee note on sale on a popular shopping website and inquired about it.

Police Inspector Suryakant Tarde of the Kalachowki police station said, “The complainant inquired about a 10-rupee note from the 1960s which had a portrait of King George and then RBI governor L K Jha’s signature on it. The cost of the note was mentioned as Rs 50,000, which Siganpura was willing to pay, so he left his number on the post.”

The next day, the complainant got a call from someone posing to be an employee of the company that runs the website and said that they had two more notes on offer — a 5-rupee note and a 1-rupee one, which would set him back by Rs 1.5 lakh and Rs 4 lakh respectively.

The 5-rupee note was from the year 1937 while the other one was a Gulf rupee, also known as a Persian Gulf rupee.

“The complainant wished to buy both the notes and he made an initial payment of Rs 1.16 lakh in instalments. When the delivery was not made, however, he kept calling the number from which he had received the call. Finally, he got a parcel on September 9, which contained a laminated 5-rupee note from the year 1937,” added Tarde.

Sensing something wasn’t right, Siganpura made some inquiries and realised that the note was fake.

He approached the Kalachowki police station and registered a case in November 2013. After the investigation was complete, a team was sent to Ahmedabad to nab the accused.Pravin Rameshbhai Mehta (46), who is based in Ahmedabad, was arrested last week and he has been remanded in judicial custody.

Mehta has been booked under Sections 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) and 419 (punishment for cheating by impersonation) of the Indian Penal Code along with Sections 66 (C) and (D) of the IT act.